Xyzzy

A big bunch of blank -- Ha! Some "extensive list." But I bet what you wanted to paste was part of the ridiculous PDF from the other day where people irresponsibly claimed 72 attackers came from the 7 countries. That is simply nt true.

The current process for vetting refugees is pretty thorough and is not just waiting around for bureaucracy. There are quite a few articles on the subject.

Section 107

Yes. That was true in the days before the republic and at some times since then (and shamefully curtailed at many critical times since the founding), but now they are guiding principles and aims but do not create a right to entry/immigration. Very few countries, Israel for example, grant an almost unfettered right to immigration for specific groups of persons.

GUWonder

That simply isn't true. Also, it's foolish and even counterproductive to rely upon foreign government background checks of citizens wanting to escape to the US. Why would you favor giving foreign governments a veto on who can enter the US; or do you really believe so little in American sovereignty and so much in an alternative form of American exceptionalism that you trust iran's background checks and veto over its citizens' international travel rights more than you trust in the US? It seems all so bizarre to distrust American capabilities as much as your posts seem to suggest.

The fact of the matter is the Obama Admin never had a ban against citizens of those 7 nations. This ban from the EO had nothing to do with the prior Admin. The EO used an arbitrary selection of seven nations found to be already unpopular in Congress, but neither Congress nor the Obama Admin ever demanded that there be this ban against the 7 nations' citizens.

Facts matter. The alternative gets exposed as an attempt to obfuscate from facts.

Xyzzy

I never said there was any universal right to entry/immigration. We have procedures for entry. People (including those from the 7 named countries) have been following those procedures. We're talking about people who are following the rules here, not those sneaking across the border.

The DJ has been asked by the relevant courts to document security concerns associated with the current rules and vetting process. The DOJ has been asked to provide some evidence for why the well established procedures were suddenly not good. The courts wanted to use the evidence to address the EO issues before them. Despite numerous opportunities and numerous requests, the DOJ has chosen not to provide ANY evidence. As the DOJ and those in the White House have discovered, "Because I say so!" does not make for a winning argument in court.

lonelycrowd

And I think that's all I and other American citizens caught up in the middle of this really want - evidence. Details. A nuanced explanation of how things got to be so serious that a blanket ban was the last remaining option. And perhaps a bit of practical advice on what we can do to help our family and colleagues waiting on interviews now prepare for the new procedures, if indeed the administration is backing down on its threat to publish a list of countries nominated for permanent exclusion in 71 days.

Of course, I fear that the reason we haven't gotten this sort of information by now is that it may not exist.

I was hoping that we'd have some more details on the next move with respect to executive orders by today, as Miller et al seemed to indicate on the Sunday talk show circuit that each passing day is now perceived to be an existential threat. Not sure if the silence out of the White House on this topic today is a signal that they're reconsidering their insistence on trying to force another incarnation of the "ban" through the legal system or if they're just temporarily distracted.

GUWonder

A lot of the senior careerists in the relevant agencies/departments still find the policy-making organizing from the top and their participation in policy design and implementation to be stunted/paralyzed since the Admin transition. When even the professional mandarins are waiting to see what comes next, we plebes have to just wait and see what the Admin throws out there to cause some more excitement. In other words, the status quo is just that until that moment hits. Transitions involve lots of distractions, but this once is extraordinary enough even in that way. Unfortunately, this doesn't mean very good news for the international traveling public.

I am just waiting to see what more ridiculousness the TSA and CBP will be doing in the months and years ahead, as this "extreme vetting" call (used to justify the ban implementation) is unlikely to be limited to just people affiliated with the 7 blacklisted countries.

zitsky

I admire people who are protesting things they disagree with. Like the pipeline, immigration etc.

edyang

Yemen is a failed state. There's no functioning government there right now. None. In light of that, how would you propose to vet a refugee coming from Yemen?

We distrust any government's capabilities to vet refugees because we have also seen attacks in European nations by terrorists smuggled in as refugees. Germany also suffered through the mass assault of females on New Year's Eve. Sweden is facing internal strife from their refugee policy. ISIS admits they are looking to come in via refugees. Syrian dictator Assad says terrorists are in the midst of the refugees. The FBI admits they cannot properly screen all refugees. France just arrested a trio for planning a bombing attack that included a teenage girl who pledged allegiance to ISIS.

In light of all the above evidence, you would still say it's not prudent to take a 90 day pause so we can re-evaluate our systems, identify our weaknesses and shore them up?

Whether or not the Obama Admin had a ban is irrelevant to my point. They had identified those specific 7 nations as terrorist hotspots. Trump ran on a platform of strong national security. Ergo, agree with it or not, it's consistent to take that one step further and pause things for 3 months to make sure things are airtight as possible.

GUWonder

The US has been vetting and taking in refugees from failed states for more decades than either of us have been alive; and this country has not ended up in an apocalyptic situation because of it. Did something terrible happen on January 20th, 2017, or later that month or early this month that necessitated an emergency ban? If not, the answer to your question is that the EO ban was imprudent.

The 7 blacklisted countries were selected by the US Congress, weren't they? But the US Congress never authorized the ban put in place by the Trump EO against citizens of the 7 countries. Nor did the Obama Admin.

I'm in Sweden in a few hours, and there is no "internal strife" to be seen by me despite me being in that country a few times a month and then some. I'm in Germany later this week, and the sky still isn't falling down and the country is safer for women than the US. Western Europe (which includes France) had no less a threat from terrorist attacks decades ago than it had in recent years, as the numbers show. But all of this is a sideshow. What dramatic risk profile change took place in the US between January 20th and this EO that objectively justified banning octogenarian Jewish Iranians from entering the US on valid US immigrant visas or with valid US LPR status cards -- something that was a direct result of this EO?

edyang

Ask the victims of San Berandino if they agree with your assessment. Oh wait, they can't because they are dead.

The primary job of the government is to keep us safe. Since 9/11 we are in a world war against radical Islam. Denial won't change that fact.

It's irrelevant if Congress authorized the ban or not. In 1952, Congress passed a law empowering the president to deny entry into the U.S. to “any class of aliens” considered to be “detrimental to the interests of the United States.” In other words, a threat to America and in the interests of national security. Obama took advantage of that executive power when he told ICE not to enforce the laws on our books.

I think the Swedish politicians would disagree with you. In 2015, "the Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven admitted that his country faced a crisis. On Thursday, it reinstated border controls, carrying out identity checks on passengers travelling by train across the strait from Denmark, and those arriving at ferry terminals in the south, to 'maintain public order'.

"Forty years ago, 421 rapes were reported to the police in Sweden annually. By 2010, according to a BBC report, police recorded the highest number of offences — about 63 per 100,000 inhabitants — of any force in Europe. That was the second highest in the world — surpassed only by Lesotho in southern Africa.

In 2014, according to the Gatestone Institute, a respected American think tank, the number of rapes had risen to 6,620, an increase of 1,472 per cent since 1975."

Madrid, London, Paris, Brussels, Nice, Berlin, Istanbul airport...not to mention the countless others that have been stopped before they could be carried out.

TWA884

Or Armenian Christian refugees?

Xyzzy

The situation in Europe is far FAR different from that of the US. In Europe people floated and walked across the borders. There was n vetting, pre-clearance or visa. People just showed up. The US is an ocean away (A natural wall!). The refugees and immigrants coming here are not coming unannounced. They have gone through many many steps to obtain passports and visas. The process is rather lengthy. The process is entirely different from the 2015 situation you are referring to in Europe.

GUWonder

Europe and the US are indeed ocean aparts in irregular migration patterns; even in terms of regular migration patterns, it's oceans apart. Also crossings between Denmark and Sweden prove nothing about "internal strife" in Sweden. And I say that as someone that goes between those two countries like I go between DC and NYC; but that is with less checking to fly between these two countries than it takes to fly from LGA to DCA.

All these emotional pull attempts and scare-mongering don't make a legal or rational basis for what has clearly been a poorly designed and implemented EO. What has been authorized by Congress is relevant, and what has been done by the Trump Admin is relevant; but both these indicated branches of government must adhere to the US Constitution with their branch authorized items if the authorized items are to be legally applicable. Obviously, enough federal judges doubt the legality of the EO that the vast majority of the ruling judiciary so far has decided to stop the EO from being applied in the here and now.

Gatestone is notorious, and not in a good way. Perhaps that "institute" needs to understand Sweden and how Sweden calculates numbers before spouting off items as if the "institute" posts an accurate picture when it doesn't. The country's definitions -- note that the plural indicates it's been re-defined by the governments and repeatedly at that -- of rape and what and how it counts rape has not been static since 1975. It's like claiming that Canada is one of the kidnapping capitals of the world, worse than various places in Latin America and worse than the US (despite the fact that the US is far more of a dangerous place than Canada and that Canada is less dangerous than Colombia and Venezuela and Brazil and much of the EU). Legal definitions and counting methods for crimes aren't static and uniform across borders. But what do rape statistics in Sweden have to do with this EO unless you want to claim that rape counts in Sweden, kidnapping counts in Canada, jaywalking in Greenland, polar bear poaching in Norway and who knows what else should be the basis for this EO in the US? Was I to think that this EO was supposed to be rooted in concerns about what may go on in the US and not about cherry-picked crime reports from Ushuaia, Longyearbyen or any other cherry-picked place meant to fit some kind of biased narrative? I'm not in the market to buy the Brooklyn Bridge, so the sales effort for the EO has to be stronger in order to convince me of its merits.

yosithezet

So the wife was from Pakistan (not on the list) and they had recently travelled to Saudia Arabia (not on the list). So how exactly would the EO have helped? The vetting for Pakistanis and Saudis is much better than that for these 7 countries?

JoeBas

Exactly. The people who say they're for the ban, should be AGAINST the ban, because the ban doesn't even ban the things they're trying to ban!